Buyer's Guide

Emerald

Emerald is the birthstone of those born in May, representing the gentle strengths of Fidelity, Goodness, and Love.

For brilliance and depth of colour nothing surpasses the emeralds from Columbia discovered during the violent conquest of the Incas by the Spanish conquistadors in the 1500's. Unknown to the rest of the world the Indians had been mining and incorporating magnificent emerald crystals in religious and ceremonial objects for at least 500 years before the Spanish invasion. The fabulous emeralds, in the display cases in the Topkapi Museum, did in fact originate in the mines of the Andes, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Today the finest emeralds are still found in these same remote mines often high in the Andes, surrounded by settlements that closely resemble the frontier towns of the Old, and very Wild West. It is from these mines that Cellini selects the finest emeralds used in its designs, although in recent years mines in Zambia have produced some very fine deep green emeralds.